None of the characters in Arthur Millers 'The Crucible' are wholly blameless for the ensuing tragedy. In your opinion does the audience find them sympathetic?

Authors Avatar

None of the characters in Arthur Millers ‘The Crucible’ are wholly blameless for the ensuing tragedy. In your opinion does the audience find them sympathetic?

Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’, portrays the hysteria created in a paranoid society that is pent-up with vengeance and retribution, when ‘the balance within a community begins to turn towards greater individual freedom’. When discussing this play we must look at the audience’s awareness of the parallels between the period when the play is set and the time when it is written. The initial audience of the 1950’s would be aware of the paranoia in Salem and the persecution of people who value their morals. However audiences today are aware of the double paranoia created by the clear parallels between the witch trials and Arthur Miller’s personal experiences of being accused of having communist sympathies. This awareness enhances all the themes throughout the play, including the sympathy felt by the audience. The development of sympathy for characters depends greatly on the part they play in the development of the trials and the factors that justify their doing so. With reference to language, structure and the social and historical settings, four of the protagonists will be investigated to identify the techniques used by the author to evoke these feelings of sympathy within the audiences.  

Abigail is undoubtedly an instigator of the mayhem that led to the trials. She is the ringleader of the girls. As she leads them through the trials her opinion and issues with people are a major influence in the false accusations of witchcraft. This, on the surface, makes her appear to be one of the characters who receive the least sympathy. However during the play the audience is shown the factors that have caused her actions, it is these factors that prompt sympathies. Abigail had a very traumatic childhood. The Native Americans murdered her parents and brought her up. Then under the care of her uncle, Parris, during her employment at the Proctor’s household, she fell in love and had an affair with John Proctor. However her love was unrequited, despite misguided impressions that John loved her. These dire events in Abigail’s life led to her manipulative, selfish yet desperate nature and this nature is what empowered Abigail to ‘cry witch’.

Miller’s portrayal of Abigail endears with her language displaying hysteria, power, love, and the harsh reality of her childhood, all of which were factors empowering her to impel the trials. These factors are demonstrated in both the dialogue and the stage directions accompanying them. Abigail undoubtedly displays hysterical qualities, without them her imagination alone could not have capacitated such a dramatic ploy. This is shown particularly in Act 3. For example her being in ‘genuine conversation’ with the ‘bird’, ‘But god made my face; you cannot want to tear my face.’ The stage directions often dictate that she is ‘transfixed’, ‘open mouthed’, ‘frightened eyes’ creating the sense that she truly believes what is ‘happening’ to her. Abigail is a powerful girl, clever and even ‘manipulative’. Her part in the trials is apparently unsympathetic due to her adopted role as the leader of the girls i.e. the witnesses. This power is demonstrated through her authoritative short, sharp, to the point sentences when addressing the girls, ‘Now look you. All of you.’, ‘We danced.’, ‘And that is all’, ‘And mark this’. These commanding sentences are blunt and dictatorial. She also demonstrates power through threatening the girls ‘I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!’ The stage directions indicate her also being physically ‘menacing’. However this tone of language extends beyond her exchange of dialogue with the girls. It extends as far as to express that she had power over the Salem community reaching as far up the power hierarchy as the judges, ‘What look you give me? I’ll not have such looks!’

Abigail’s unrequited love for John Proctor undoubtedly plays a part in empowering her to instigate the madness. Her love for John is displayed in the alteration in her language. In general Abigail’s dialogue is harsh and over confident, ‘I say shut it, Mary Warren!’ However when in conversation with Proctor although she still displays the confidence her language is much softer ‘I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart.’ The stage directions denote a ‘concentrated desire’ on her part, compared to him physically ‘setting her aside’. The final factor expressed in the language is the effect Abigail’s traumatic childhood has had on her. This is demonstrated in the stark manner of her referral to their death in a threat to Mercy Lewis, Mary Warren and Betty ‘I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ heads on the pillow next to mine’. Although the context appears to be spoken by one unaffected by the event, her use of onomatopoeia ‘smash’ and the adjective ‘dear’ she creates a dramatic atmosphere and therefore endears sympathy.

Structure is a technique used by Miller that indirectly creates sympathy for the character of Abigail. Abigail is one of two characters discussed in this essay where her absence from the play is the more influential than her actual presence. Although Abigail is present when the first mention of witchcraft is made, she neither says nor does anything to encourage the theory. It is not until the final pages of Act one that she plays any part in the initiation of the trials. It is in these final pages that she is the first girl to state ‘I saw Sarah Good with the devil’ after Tituba’s forced confession, starting the accusations that lead to the trials and executions. Abigail continues to be present throughout the trials. However she disappears in the final stages when everything has gone too far. In the film adaptation of the play, one of several extra scenes shows Abigail visiting John Proctor in jail, and admitting that she did not mean it to go as far. In the book the last we hear of Abigail is that she has disappeared with Parris’s money. As she is absent from the final scenes we are not aware of the effects the trials have had on her. As it is in these scenes where we are shown how the trials have affected key figures in the community such as the judges, Hale and Parris. Seeing their guilt and regrets creates sympathy. However, Abigail in particular, and others not present in the scene do not receive the sympathy endeared by the final scenes.

Join now!

Abigail is a character whose actions are deeply effected by the social and historical setting of the play. In such a god fearing community Abigail’s affair with Proctor would have been regarded as very taboo and her name would have been marked as one of a loose woman. One’s name in this period was very important, with people fighting to keep their names pure and unblemished. Abigail had to save her name from the rumours of her dismissal by Elizabeth Proctor and this attempted marking of her name would have created a great deal of resent on Abigail’s part ‘Goody ...

This is a preview of the whole essay